JavaTM Development Kit Version 1.2 Summary of New Features

JDK 1.2 Contents

Version 1.2 of the Java Development Kit adds the following major features to the Java platform and JDK tools since 1.1. The full list of features is at Guide to Features.

Java Platform

1. Security Enhancements
2. Swing (JFC)
3. Java 2D (JFC)
4. Accessibility (JFC)
5. Drag & Drop (JFC)
6. Application Services (JFC)
7. Collections
8. Extensions Framework
9. JavaBeans^TM Enhancements
10. Input Method Framework
11. Version Identification
12. RMI Enhancements
13. Serialization Enhancements
14. Reference Objects
15. Audio Enhancements
16. Java IDL
17. JAR Enhancements
18. JNI Enhancements
19. Reflection Enhancements
20. JDBC Enhancements
21. Performance Enhancements
    
22. Floating Point Changes
    

Java Plug-In

1. Java Plug-In

Tool Support

1. Java Virtual Machine Debugger Interface
2. Java Virtual Machine Profiler Interface

Tools

1. Command Line Changes from 1.1 to 1.2
2. JDK Tools Changes
3. Java Compiler
4. Javadoc Enhancements
5. Java Launcher
   

Java Platform

1. Security Enhancements
   • Policy-based, Easily-configurable, Fine-grained Access Control introduces the concepts of "permission" and "policy." When code is loaded, it is assigned "permissions" based on the security policy currently in effect. Each permission specifies a permitted access to a particular resource (such as "read" and "write" access to a specified file or directory, "connect" access to a given host and port, etc.). The policy, specifying which permissions are available for code from various signers/locations, can be initialized from an external configurable policy file. Unless a permission is explicitly granted to code, it cannot access the resource that is guarded by that permission.
     These new concepts of permission and policy enable the Java Development Kit to offer fine-grain, highly configurable, flexible, and extensible access control. Such access control can now not only be specified for applets, but also for all code written in the Java programming language, including applications, and beans.
   • Certificate interfaces enable developers to build tools for parsing certificates, enforcing their own site-specific certificate policies, and managing local databases of certificates.
   • X.509 v3 implementation of the new, supported certificate interfaces.
   • The keytool, jar, jarsigner, and policytool security tools - keytool creates key pairs and self-signed X.509 v1 certificates, and manages keystores. Keys and certificates are used to digitally sign your applications and applets. A keystore is a protected database that holds keys and certificates. jarsigner signs JAR (Java Archive Format) files, and verifies the signature(s) of signed JAR files. It accesses the keystore when it needs to find the key when signing a JAR file. keytool and jarsigner replace javakey. policytool creates and modifies the external policy configuration files that define your installation's security policy.

2. Swing (JFC)
   • Swing is a new set of GUI components with a "Pluggable Look and Feel" that are implemented in 100% Pure Java, and based on the JDK 1.1 Lightweight UI Framework.
   • Pluggable Look and Feel lets you easily assign an OS-specific look & feel (Motif, Windows, MacOS) or a uniform look & feel (Java Look & Feel) to your Swing GUI components. Additionally, you can modify an existing look & feel or create your own.
   • Swing Components include both 100% Pure Java versions of the 1.1 AWT component set, plus a rich set of higher level components. The complete set includes borders, buttons, checkboxes, combo boxes, icons, labels, lists, list boxes, menus, menubars, menu items, popup menus, radio buttons, progress bars, scroll panes & viewports, scrollbars, tabbed panes, tables, text areas, text components, text fields, trees and HTML viewers.
   • Accessibility is built-in to Swing components. All Swing components implement the Java Accessibility API.
   • Mouseless operation support is built into the Swing components. All Swing components can be operated entirely from the keyboard.

3. Java 2D (JFC)
   • Java 2D API is a set of classes for advanced 2D graphics and imaging. It encompasses line art, text, and images in a single comprehensive model. The API provides extensive support for image compositing and alpha channel images, a set of classes to provide accurate color space definition and conversion, and a rich set of display-oriented imaging operators. These classes are provided as additions to the java.awt and java.awt.image packages (rather than as a separate package).

4. Accessibility (JFC)
   • Accessibility API provides a clean interface which allows assistive technologies to interact and communicate with JFC and AWT components. Assistive technologies are used by people with and without disabilities and include screen readers, screen magnifiers, speech recognition, and keyboard support for mouseless use. All Swing components implement this API.

5. Drag & Drop (JFC)
   • Drag & Drop enables data transfer both across native applications and applications written in the Java programming language, between Java applications, and within a single Java application.

6. Application Services (JFC)
   • Keyboard Navigation makes it possible to substitute the pressing of predetermined key combinations for mouse-driven events such as the selection of a menu item or a dialog-box button.
   • Multithreaded Event Queue is an enhanced event queue that makes it easier for developers to synchronize events from multiple sources. This simplifies thread management by making use of new methods such as invokeLater(), which makes it possible for an application to access the user interface from a separate thread.
   • Undo makes it possible to reverse the effects of a previously executed command.
   • Bounded Range Model sets limits on the values that can vary with a bounded range, such as with sliders, progress bars and scroll bars. It also corrects some shortcomings of the AWT Adjustable interface.
   • Custom Cursors allow programs to create their own custom mouse cursors using arbitrary images. The hotspot can also be defined.
   • Debug Graphics Utility is a design tool that you can use to test whether your Swing components are being drawn correctly. With DebugGraphics, you can highlight component parts in bright red as they are being drawn. Then you can monitor them as they are being created and observe exactly how all drawing operations are taking place.
   • Repaint Batching is a mechanism that provides ways to optimize the repainting of screen regions. It lets you mark a component region as out-of-date, and compute the intersection of all out-of-date regions and repaint what is appropriate. It also provides a way for objects to be aware of all out-of-date regions in a component hierarchy at a given time so advanced optimization will be possible. Lastly, it allows you to plug in a custom repaint batching system for special applications.

7. Collections
   • Collections Framework is a unified framework for representing and manipulating collections, allowing them to be manipulated independently of the details of their representation. It reduces programming effort, increases performance, allows for interoperability among unrelated APIs, reduces effort to design and learn new APIs, and fosters software reuse. The framework includes interfaces, implementations, and algorithms.

8. Extensions Framework
   • Extension Framework supports the dynamic downloading and installation of extensions as JAR files onto the Java platform. An extension is a group of packages that implement an API that extends the Java platform. Extensions will be available from both Sun and from third parties. Standard extensions are special kinds of extensions.

9. JavaBeans^TM Enhancements
   • Interaction with Applet Semantics eases the development of objects that implement Applet as well as JavaBeans behavior.
   • Better Design-Time Support adds infrastructure during the JavaBeans design time to enable a more sophisticated builder environment.
   • Runtime Containment and Services Protocol (BeanContext) adds additional context to the execution lifetime of JavaBeans including but not limited to AppletContext and the ability to parent into an AWT presentation hierarchy.

10. Input Method Framework
    • Input Method Framework enables all text editing components to receive Japanese, Chinese, or Korean text input through input methods. An input method lets users enter thousands of different characters using keyboards with far fewer keys. Typically a sequence of several characters needs to be typed and then converted to create one or more characters. Components can actively use the API to support the on-the-spot input style; otherwise the framework provides root-window style input as a fallback.

11. Version Identification
    • Version Identification introduces package level version control where applications and applets can identify at runtime the version of a specific Java Runtime Environment, VM, and class package.

12. RMI Enhancements
    • Remote Object Activation introduces support for persistent references to remote objects and automatic object activation via these references.
    • Custom Socket Factories allow a remote object to specify the custom socket factory that RMI will use for remote calls to that object. RMI over a secure transport (such as SSL) can be supported using custom socket factories.
    • Minor API Enhancements allow the following: unexporting a remote object, obtaining the stub for an object implementation, and exporting an object on a specific port.

13. Serialization Enhancements
    • Serializable Fields API is added for defining and accessing serializable fields. Enables separation of Serializable class implementation from its serialized state.
      • A serializable field is no longer required to be a non-transient and non-static member of a serializable class. Serializable fields of a class can be explicitly defined as array components of the special class member serialPersistentFields.
      • New interfaces ObjectOutputStream.PutField and ObjectOutputStream.GetField provide access to a serializable field that is not declared as a field within a Serializable class.
      Enable a Serializable class to nominate a replacement for one of its instances during serialization and/or deserialization by defining the methods writeReplace and readResolve.

    • New javadoc tags @serial, @serialField, and @serialData provide a way to document the Serialized Form of a Serializable class. The Javadoc standard doclet generates a serialization specification based on the contents of these tags.

14. Reference Objects, including weak references
    • Reference Objects support a limited degree of interaction with the garbage collector. A program may use a reference object to maintain a reference to some other object in such a way that the latter object may still be reclaimed by the collector. A program may also arrange to be notified some time after the collector has determined that the reachability of a given object has changed.

15. Audio Enhancements
    • The Java Sound Engine replaces the existing sound engine. It enables playback of WAV, AIFF, AU, MIDI, and RMF files with much higher sound quality. It introduces no new API.
    • newAudioClip is a new static method in java.applet.Applet. This method does not require an AppletContext, and thus enables applications as well as applets to create AudioClips.

16. Java IDL
    • Java IDL adds CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) capability to the Java platform, providing standards-based interoperability and connectivity. Java IDL enables distributed Web-enabled applications to transparently invoke operations on remote network services using the industry standard OMG IDL (Object Management Group Interface Definition Language) and IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) defined by the Object Management Group. Runtime components include a fully-compliant Java ORB for distributed computing using IIOP communication. The idltojava compiler generates portable client stubs and server skeletons that work with any CORBA-compliant ORB implementation.

17. JAR Enhancements
    • JAR Enhancements extend the utility of the Java Archive format. Improvements to the command-line JAR tool for creating and updating signed JAR files. New standard APIs for reading and writing JAR files. Policy and mechanism for handling dependencies on extensions and other third-party libraries packaged as JAR files.

18. JNI Enhancements
    • JNI Enhancements extend the Java Native Interface (JNI) to incorporate new features in the Java platform. The changes are driven by licensee and user comments.

19. Reflection Enhancements
    • Reflection Enhancements enables a field, method or constructor object to be explicitly flagged as suppressing default Java language access control.

20. JDBC Enhancements
    • JDBC Enhancements include JDBC 2.0. An improved version of the JDBC-ODBC Bridge is an accessory to the Java platform.

21. Performance Enhancements
    These performance enhancements are new in JDK 1.2 and are specific to the Java Software reference implementation. In addition, the floating point changes enable greater efficiency for all implementations.
    • Solaris Native Thread Support can provide several advantages over the default threads package. In a multi-processor environment, the Solaris kernel can schedule native threads on the parallel processors for increased performance. The native threads VM can call into C libraries that use Solaris native threads. The VM can avoid some inefficient remapping of I/O system calls that are otherwise necessary.
    • Memory Compression for Loaded Classes
      Constant strings are shared among different classes, resulting in reduced memory consumption for applications written in the Java programming language.
    • Faster Memory Allocation and Garbage Collection
      The thread-local heap cache eliminates the need of locking for majority of heap allocations. Memory allocation speed is drastically increased. Garbage collection pauses are shorter. The garbage collector no longer excessively consumes the C stack.
    • Monitor Speedups
      The thread-local monitor cache enables synchronized methods to run closer to the speed of normal methods.
    • Native Library JNI Port
      Native libraries supporting core Java platform classes (e.g., AWT) have been rewritten using the Java Native Interface (JNI). The resulting code is more efficient and can run unmodified on different Java virtual machines.
    • Just In Time (JIT) Compilers
      JIT compilers are included with the Java Development Kit software for both Windows and Solaris.
    • RMI Performance Improvements
      The client-side implementation of distributed garbage collection (DGC) creates fewer network connections for its communication, and it uses finer-grained locks to eliminate a global synchronization bottleneck for each operation. The server-side DGC uses the new weak reference and notification facility to accurately and efficiently track the local reachability of remote objects, eliminating the need for costly linear searches of the remote object table. RMI's dynamic class loading implementation has been optimized in several ways, such as by eliminating redundant class resolutions and object constructions. The serialization performance of RMI's classes was increased by adding explicit serialVersionUID fields to all serializable classes (including generated stubs).
    • Object Serialization Performance Improvements
      Reduced heap allocation needed to serialize/deserialize. Reduced initial heap allocation footprint for ObjectOutputStream and ObjectInputStream by making their tables more dynamic and reducing their initial sizes. Compressed storage needed for class descriptor within a serialization stream by eliminating duplication of type strings. Improved throughput when serializing a large number of distinct objects to a stream.

22. Floating Point Changes
    1. The Java programming language and virtual machine specifications have been modified slightly to permit implementations to perform floating point calculations more efficiently on popular microprocessors.
       

       Java Plug-In

       • Java Runtime Environment and Java Plug-In
         • Java Plug-In is a product that allows customers to direct Java applets or JavaBeans components to run using Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE), instead of the browser's default Java runtime.

       Tool Support

       • Java Virtual Machine Debugger Interface
         • Java Virtual Machine Debugger Interface (JVMDI) is low-level services for debugging provided by the Java virtual machine.

       • Java Virtual Machine Profiler Interface
         • Java Virtual Machine Profiler Interface (JVMPI) is an experimental interface for profiling. The JVMPI is not yet a standard profiling interface. This feature is provided for the benefit of tools vendors who have an immediate need for profiling hooks in the Java virtual machine. The JVMPI will continue to evolve, based on feedback from customers and tools vendors.

       Tools

       Several of the tools have improvements; some are listed here.

       • Command Line Changes from 1.1 to 1.2 describes how to migrate forward.
       • JDK Tools Changes lists tool incompatibilities.
       • Java Compiler has new options. See: javac changes
       • Javadoc Enhancements can be used to customize the content and format of the output of the javadoc tool. The standard generated format of API documentation has also changed dramatically.
       • Java launcher has new options. See: -Xrunhprof, -J-Djava.compiler, java replaces jre, oldjava, and -usepolicy, java replaces java_g
       
       

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